Despite this, Raikkonen was happy with his best finish of the season. “I’m happy with how this weekend ended. We knew it would not be easy on this circuit, but the car has improved and today the pace was good.”

The 34-year-old out raced his team mate, Fernando Alonso, and has revealed that his strategy paid off. “We had decided to take this race more aggressively, making an early stop to get ahead of the cars that had yet to pit and that meant I was able to stay with the leaders for much of the race.”

Marco Mattiacci

Many in Formula One will hope that this will be the turning point in Raikkonen’s season. He has struggled to get to grips with a Ferrari car that does not suit his driving style and rumours suggested that he may not be at the team next year. However, Ferrari has backed their underperforming star.

Team principle Marco Mattiacci said, “We are very pleased for Kimi, he came close to the podium an scored his best result of the season, a result which sees us maintain third place in the constructors classification.”